Thursday, September 29, 2011

"The value of the gift given is not measured by the manner in which it was received."

I gave a gift once. One I have never given to anyone else in this world and one I will find it incredibly difficult to give again. I learned something today in group, as I do most days, but today it was something I really needed to hear. They do this little exercise to teach people that they are not worthless, I'm going to teach it to you.

Take a bill from your pocket, it doesn't matter the number on the bill, just take it out and look at it. What is it worth? The one I am holding is worth five American dollars. Now crumple it up, throw it on the floor, step on it and grind it into the surface below you. Look at the bill again, how much is the one you were holding worth? Mine is still worth five American dollars. I would be willing to bet yours is still worth the same value as when we started this little exercise. It will spend the same, because the value of that bill is not decided by how many times it has been pissed on or tucked into some stripper's thong. The value of my bill is decided by the United States Treasury. Let's move on shall we?

I wrote to myself last night and revealed it this morning in treatment. I took their little game and turned it on its head. I wrote about a penny, a worthless piece of change that I don't even bother carrying around. I told them this morning that I felt like a penny that had been cut in half by surgical scissors, even more worthless than when we started. I told my dad that last night and he said that there are a lot of people out there who pick up the pennies I have been throwing away for years. They might be worthless to me, but to some they are the opposite.

I woke up this morning depressed and lonely until I walked out to the car and found something sitting face up on the door handle. A brand new penny. "Clever fucker," I thought to myself. I picked it up and put it into my pocket and went on about the day.

I got called into the counselor's office today and he wanted to talk about something I have only been able to voice in anger when there, my ex. He told me that he was going to try and drag the pain out of me so I could feel it and that it would not be pleasant. So I told him the story, in all its bloody detail and found myself crying by the end. I tried to keep talking but he stopped me.

"Patrick, the value of the gift given is not measured by the manner in which it was received," he said to me. It took me longer than it normally does to get such metaphors, but eventually I got it. He explained that I gave the greatest gift I could have given to someone. I dropped my life, moved across the country into hostile territory and gave my love to a woman who I believed loved me just as much. It does not matter that she did not accept the gift, it only matters that I gave it and gave it sincerely.

He told me that it was not my fault that I was left in the manner that I was, it was hers. He told me that I might be to blame for a lot of what happened in our relationship's failure, but that there is a simple thing you say to your spouse when you get married. "For better, for worse. In sickness and in health." She left me when I was at the sickest point in my life, so sick that I was in denial about it and getting high constantly to stay that way. She left me when I needed the most support and comfort. She left me in a mental hospital with no connection to the outside world. She is the offender. She is the quitter. She does not deserve me and she never did.

I read her blog so long ago and saw a woman who was so beautiful, smart and funny but had been treated like shit by so many men in the past. I wanted to give her the gift of being the man who would never do that to her, who would do anything at all costs to protect her from hurt. I may have failed in that task, but it was not without trying.

"The funny thing," he told me, "is that you are getting your life back on track and learning to deal with your problems while she most likely sits in New York in denial and blames it all on you." Then he said something really powerful to me.

"Fuck her, dude, she never deserved you in the first place. If she was willing to leave you at the drop of a hat in your darkest hour, she never really loved you as much as you loved her." He said that he saw so much in me and that someday some woman would be glad that this happened to me, because it will have made me hers. Someday someone will come around who will accept my gift and who will stand by me in my darkest hour. Someday I will be there to stand by her in her darkest hour. Someday I will find the perfect woman because I love too much not to.

Where does that leave me? It leaves me with a dick that cannot be used for a while, that's for sure. I need to take it easy and stay away from women until I rebuild myself again. Better and stronger than I ever was in that cesspool known as New York City. Someday, however, when I am ready I will give my gift again and it will be received in the way that my ex failed to take it.

Right now, I couldn't give a fuck what happens to her. She will probably end up with the same shitty guys who didn't value her as much as I did. Maybe she will end up alone and maybe she deserves it, but honestly, I don't fucking care anymore. Sure, she hurt me and she did it in the most brutal way possible, but I will be stronger in the end. Stronger than I was to begin with. Strong for the woman somewhere out there who does deserve me.

Contrary to what she may believe or have tried to make me believe, I am not worthless. I am worth loving and I have so much to give. Until then, it is time to focus on me. Fix. Rebuild. Grow. Fight for it. You should all know by now, I am no quitter.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

I am sick. I am an addict. I am an alcoholic. I fucking hate saying that, but I have to face the fact that it's true. Much like the bracelet on my arm says, I am toxic. There is one more thing that defines me at the current moment, utterly heartbroken.

So I went out with Molly last night and had an amazing time. We went out for pizza and ended up back at her apartment down the road. We sat listening to music for a while, and before long I found her in my arms. We laid down on the couch and I held her for the better part of two hours. I could tell she knew I had a raging hard on, and I knew we shouldn't be where we were. I kissed her on the forehead and left, standing outside her apartment smoking cigarettes and trying to process what the fuck had just happened.

I came to the hospital today on an absolute emotional high, so naturally I shared it with the group. A few hours later I found myself sitting face to face with my counselor, asking about this new relationship. He immediately knew who it was, "you follow her around like a fucking puppy dude," he said to me. I knew what he was going to say next, but for the love of God I did not want to hear it. The sad truth is that I needed to.

The point was direct and honest. "You are heartbroken and an addict, I normally tell people to wait one year sober before they engage in a new relationship," he said to me. He asked me a ton of questions about where I saw this going and if I thought it was a good idea, it was obvious he did not. Frankly, I knew in the back of my head it wasn't either. He gave me an assignment, a very simple one, don't speak to her tonight and see how it makes me feel. He said that it would help us both gauge how sick I really am. I already fucking know how it is going to make me feel, therefore I am sick as fuck.

I sent her a text saying I was busy tonight and couldn't talk, as instructed, and am now sitting here with tears in my eyes as I write this. I have just come out of the most serious relationship of my life, one that I thought would be the last I would ever have. Now I am single, heartbroken and more fucking lonely than I have been in my entire life. He told me a very simple statement, "you want her to be your new drug so you don't have to face the pain of being left." He couldn't be more right.

I told him that all I wanted to do was go home, get drunk and smoke a fucking joint. He said he already knew that, but all it was doing was casting a fog over me. I had been using that fog in the past to hide from the hurt I have so constantly felt throughout my life. He told me it is time to face the music, and that is was going to be more painful than any other pain I have ever experienced. That's what scares me. I have no comfort, no one to reassure me in the way that my ex did. I am lonely, I am sad and I feel like I am trapped at the bottom of a well. I am so sick of this pain, all I want to do is numb it out, but I can't.

For the first time in my life it is time to actually swallow the bitter pill and face my broken heart with a clear head. I am a victim, he told me, and have been most of my life. I said I'm fucking tired of bring the victim. The only way to avoid being the victim again is to face my pain and to tackle it. I am so scared and alone that I don't know if I can do this. I feel betrayed on every level possible and I don't know how to get over it. He told me that getting fucked up is just going to prolong the pain, and I know that is true, but I do not want to climb this mountain.

I am tired. Tired of this pain. Tired of being the victim. Tired of being the fuck up all the time. I just need forgiveness and comfort and I know both of those are nowhere to be found. I am going to be living with this misery for the next few years and I don't know if it will swallow me as it almost did a few weeks ago. The trouble now is that the misery is multiplied by 1000%. I was looking for comfort from Molly, but I now know that is the wrong place to be looking. I have to look within to find it. I have to man up and swallow the bitter pill. I can only pray that I will be strong enough because right now I have never felt more weak. I just want this to stop, but I know it won't.

The bitter pill is that things are going to get significantly worse before they get anything close to better. I just hope I am strong enough to fight this and win. I guess it is time to put back on the armor I took off almost three years ago and prepare for war because this is going to be the fight of my life, in fact, this is going to be the fight FOR my life. God help me I am so alone. Please just walk me through this. I cannot do this alone.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

So I met this girl named Molly in my PHP program. It didn't take long before we were talking on breaks and exchanging phone numbers. The trouble I am having right now is learning what it means to be single. Does she want to be friends? Does she want to fuck? Does she want something real? I have not a clue, and honestly I don't know what I want right now either. I guess I really am still in shock.

I asked her if she would like to hang out tomorrow night and she said yes. Let's just say my parent's basement is not the place to host a lady, so we are going out for dinner. Now my primary reasoning behind pursuing this whatever the hell it is, is because I need someone to talk to about the hurt I have been through. Someone who understands and won't judge me. Someone who is clean and sober and can maybe offer me some sort of comfort.

Basically I just need a new friend, not to say that the ones I have are in any inadequate, but they hang out in bars and will occasionally hit the bowl. I don't really need to be in either of those situations quite yet because I haven't mastered the skills I need to stay sober quite yet. I'm hoping she might help me with that. But honestly I think I am hoping for something more and I feel guilty for it.

All these people tell me that being single after so long is like being free, I couldn't disagree more. I feel lost, not free. When I was not single I knew the role I was supposed to play. I wanted to protect her, care about her and eventually provide for her. Most of all I wanted to love her, in the way she needed to be loved. Right now, on the other hand, I have no idea what the fuck I am supposed to be doing as far as relationships with the opposite sex go. I feel like I'm going through puberty again I'm so fucking awkward.

I don't know whether I should be out there trying to get laid or meet someone new, or whether I am supposed to be laying in my bed crying and being lonely. Since I really had no idea that this was coming, I had no time to mentally prepare myself for being single. I figured being single was over. I was promised that no matter what, I would never be single again. The fact of the matter is that I am just hurting so bad I don't know my ass from my elbows. Over the past few weeks I have been coming to terms that I have been in some kind of pain for most of my life, a good amount of it caused by myself, but regardless; I do not know what it means to be happy anymore.

So that brings me back to where I started, Molly. I don't know if I want to put another woman through what I just put the last one through, but I sure as hell don't want to be alone for the rest of my life.

My mom was telling me last night how much I remind her of her brother who died when I was 7. She kept saying that I was exactly like him in the sense that I would reach my hand out to anyone who needed it, even at my own expense. Too many times that hand has come back bloody. Too many times I have trusted when my head was telling me that I should be more careful. For Christ's sake, look where it got me. I'm sitting in my parents fucking basement after eight years of doing it on my own. What a lesson in humility, but we'll cover that topic at a later date. In any case, after she finished telling me that, she told me that she believed it was the reason he never married, he had been hurt by too many women he put too much trust in. I can actually see myself headed in that direction for the first time in my life.

I am so fucking lonely and good God does it scare the shit out of me. What the hell am I going to do now?

Monday, September 26, 2011

I'm back with scars to show.
Back with the streets I know,
Will never take me anywhere but here.

-The Weakerthans

It's funny and I honestly thought I'd never say this, but I am so
relieved that after almost nine years away I am living in Milwaukee
again. Earlier tonight I was sitting in a small efficiency apartment
with three of the men who were to be my groomsmen brewing a fresh batch
of beer. For the first time in so long I felt comfortable. Comfortable
enough to have only one beer. Comfortable enough to pass on the bowl.
Comfortable to open up and not have to worry about what they would think
of me.

Since I left Brooklyn a little more than a week ago I have really been realizing
just how much I did not belong there. Too much stress, activity and
traffic. It was slowly wearing me down, especially since I only wanted
to be there because of the deep love I felt. God that's
strange and sad to say, but honestly, after tonight I feel more at home
than I ever did in Cincinnati or Brooklyn.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is it was just another act of love
from a beautiful, intelligent and caring woman. Leaving me, that is. She
knew better than any that I didn't belong in New York and she let me
go. Maybe that wasn't her reason, but it turned out that way in the end.
She sent me home, my real home, the place where more than one or two
people love me. She sent me back to the town where I know everyone's
name and they know mine.

Sure I've come back with many more scars in my head and heart, but I am
back. It's so nice to say, "oh yeah, I have friends again." It might
seem strange, but the place I couldn't wait to get away from eight years
ago is now the place I am happier than ever to be.

For that I owe you my greatest thanks. By letting me go, you let me go
back to the place I love. Back with the streets I know will never take
me anywhere but here, right? That being said, I couldn't be more OK with that
right now. There is nowhere on earth I would rather be than right here,
even if it did take breaking my heart to get me to figure it out.

I always said I can only learn one way, the hard way. This was by far
the hardest way to learn but it sure as hell taught me where my home is
and where I truly belong.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Last night I wrote about all the things I regret, miss and want. Tonight I write about something different. This is my space. This is how I deal with my grief.

I hate you and I hate your family. I bear my fair share of guilt, but let me be clear, if you or your family intended on sparing me and my family any hurt, you all failed miserably. I have never seen such a lack of compassion in my life. I honestly cannot believe I overestimated all of you as much as I did. I really thought you guys cared about me. As the details about how events went down while I was in the hospital I really realize that you guys decided to stop giving a shit about me and my family in an instant.

I think that it is totally gutless that you would not speak to my parents when you knew they were confused and terrified about what was happening to their son. Had the coin been flipped, your family would not have suffered such treatment. I don't often see my father cry, but he did when he made one of the better points I've heard in the past week. They called you and you damn well knew they were so worried about their son, but you would not answer their calls. That is heartless and cold. Beyond that I find it utterly pathetic that you had your father respond for you. I thought adults handled shit like adults but I guess I was wrong.

I almost started laughing when they told me that your dad sent an email late at night saying that you, "would not be available to them," when they needed help as you did in the past. I laugh when I realize you and your family were actually holding important things, things that I needed for my well being and things I love as collateral until you got back your fucking EZ-Pass. How utterly pathetic and lacking in compassion could you guys possibly be. Like I said I now realize I greatly overestimated the character of you and your family. I knew all along I would never live up to your parents standards, and quite frankly I don't think I could have ever lived up to yours either. I wonder if any man will. I truly wish you good luck in finding another one who will try as hard as I did.

Now I am not writing this to alleviate any of the guilt I feel for what happened or to shift the blame. I just need to know that I am not the only one with a burden to carry here. Let me spell this out very clearly. You left me while I was in a mental hospital. Actually you didn't leave me, you didn't have the guts to say it until I forced you to. All you would say was, "I think you need to go home with your parents." All that being said, you did it on the phone so honestly, grow some balls. Come and tell me in person and face the consequences of your decision the same way that I have to face mine every morning noon and night.

You left me all alone in there, no way to call out, no one to cry with and no one to help pick me up off the ground. We both know I had problems and that I wasn't confronting them, but you need to realize that you lied to me. Had the coin been flipped, I would have stood by you until the very end and I think you know that. I actually don't care if you believe that or not. I do and I know it is true.

I find it pathetic that I had to find out from other people the real reason why you were, "asking me to go home with my parents." I find it utterly heartbreaking that you didn't have the courage to help me in the time I needed it the most. I know I hurt you a lot, but I now know this after the fact. We both know that I could not see it either. You should have said more and you should have listened when I told you that your family and their expectations were too much and that they were crushing me. You just did not want to hear it. Turns out in the end that you didn't care after all, we both know who was more important to you. I left my family and friends for you. You sat back and waited for a man to come and be molded into your perfect vision of a husband. Sorry I couldn't live up to it, but at least I tried. You fucking sat on your ass and reeled me in.

Sure your parents were kind enough to me at the time and they supported us, but in all actuality they only cared about you. My father mentioned to me how seriously hurt he was that we had taken you into our home, broken bread with you and that you would not even do them the courtesy of telling them how I was doing or what was going on. How spineless.

Again, I pause to mention that I recognize that I was not 100% behind my treatment, but leaving me in the shape you did was not at all something someone who loved another human being as much as you claimed to would do. And let's just come right out and finish this, you fucking lied to me. I asked all the time because I knew somehow in the back of my head that when I needed you the most or when things got tough you would cut and run. Thank you for showing me your true colors.

The funny thing is that I am sober. The funny thing is that I spend six hours every day trying to tackle my illness, guilt and grief. I throw my all into it, and I do it for me. Two weeks ago I wanted to do it for you. But honestly, fuck you. You and I both know that I would do anything for you, but we both know the same was not true for you. You would have never left your comfy security blanket in New York in order to help me get a sense of peace even though you knew, or should have known since I said it so many fucking times, that it was eating away at me each day.

So you're right. We both need to move on. But I need to move on because I want nothing to do with you. Like I said, you showed your true colors. You ran like a child back to mommy and daddy when things got tough. I had to swallow my pride and be forced to live with mine. But I will rebuild and you know I will. I am much stronger than you, I have been beaten, abused and left to hang out to dry so many times but here I sit. I don't give a shit who believes me, I believe me, the people who truly know and care about me believe me and we all know it is true. Call me delusional or tell me I'm trying to rationalize all you want, but you know that some of this burden is yours.

The difference between us, however, is that I will face my guilt and I will defeat it. You will bury yours and blame me for everything. And honestly, go right ahead, I want nothing to do with you. The thing that is so funny to me and sad at the same time is that I know I will find another woman who will care about me as much as I cared about you. You on the other hand will be hardpressed to find another like me who would give everything up for you, especially in that disgusting place you call "home."

So with that, I bid you good luck. Like your dad so cruelly put it to me, "you play the hand life deals you." Enjoy playing the lonely hand, and good luck finding someone who cares about you as much as I did and do ever again. Don't forget, as your family never failed to remind me, your clock is ticking. Mine is not.

I don't know if you read this anymore, my guess would be that you deleted it from your reader when you were doing heart surgery. I've given up on that stupid stat counter shit anyways, all it is is narcissism. Anyway, this is what they call a "Do Not Send Letter," in therapy. I owe us both one.

I miss looking at you, coming home to you after a day spent looking at the dirty and disgusting creatures I interacted with. I want that back, but I know it is now impossible for I am not that much of a fool. What I regret the most, however, is all the nights I took that evening with you for granted. Smoked pot. Drank beer. Played video games. What a waste. I had everything I needed right in front of me but didn't ever quite realize it.

I regret that I realized it too late. I regret that I hurt us both. I want your forgiveness and I want to forgive myself, but I know both of those are impossible. I do miss the times you held me close after yet another fuck up and told me that everything would be ok and that you would never leave me. I regret that I forced you to go back on that promise. I want you to know that there is only one person to blame here. We both know that it is I.

I want you to know that I am truly sorry, but I regret that I used that word so many times that you will never believe it from me again. I miss the days when it meant something to you, when it wasn't just another excuse I was using to cover up for being a fuck up. Quite honestly, the thing I regret the most is fucking up the best thing I ever had going for me. I regret hurting you. I miss the days when it was only love that passed between us. I regret that I have ended those days.

They tell me in group that I'm not supposed to feel shame or guilt for what happened, I think that is bullshit. I regret using my illness as an excuse and I regret not realizing its seriousness until it was too late. I miss the days when I wasn't consumed by this. I miss you.

I want to be able to tell you all of these things, but I know I can't. Like you said when I asked if we could still be friends, "We can't, I need to heal and move on. So do you." So I guess this my regret, that I can never tell you how I feel ever again. I regret that I have to write it by myself in a cold basement in my parent's house at three in the morning. How can I not feel like a failure? I just don't understand. I failed you and me at the same fucking time without ever even realizing it.

I don't know how much more of this I can take. I want to come down from this cross that I've nailed my bloody hands to. There is too much on my hands, but it doesn't feel right, just blaming this on my illness and not taking responsibility for my actions or lack thereof. I failed you my love and I will always regret that.

Before I stop this torture there is one last thing I want to tell you. I want to thank you for saving my life. You may not be in my life anymore, but if it wasn't for you I would be resting in a nice plot of land in Loretto, Kentucky. I want to thank you for getting me into treatment. I want to thank you for leaving me. As much as I hate to say that, you leaving was the wake up call that I needed to get my house in order. I regret not taking on this pain sooner, I had grown used to it always being there. I regret not believing you when you told me I was strong enough to beat this. I regret that only now I realize that.

But most of all, above everything else, I regret breaking your heart. For that there is no forgiveness. That is a burden I must carry, for I deserve it. It is mine now. I keep it in a little place in my heart and in my head. Just like the burn on my arm, I cannot forget. I know I should, but I don't think I ever will.

There will always be a place that you own in my heart, and I regret that it is no longer something you want. Goodbye my love.

Friday, September 23, 2011

So I've been meeting with a close friend who you might call a "spiritual director," and she gave me a gift on Tuesday. She asked me to reach my hand into a bucket and pick out a "Livestrong" type bracelet, all of which have a different saying on them. We both gave each other a strange look when the blue one I pulled out had the word "toxic," written on it.

"I didn't even know that one was in there," she said, "if I did, I would have taken it out."

"Everything has a reason, Judy," I responded.

This bracelet does have a meaning to me, it reminds me I am toxic and so are my behaviors.

I got back from my annual Tour de Wisconsin with my best friends in the end of August and had been having an extremely difficult time dealing with my PTSD. It was so bad that I was having trouble recognizing the difference between what was real and what was paranoia. I was grading every person I passed on the street or met with an A through F grade based on their perceived threat level to me. I was thinking people were plotting against me, unfortunately the only plot I was missing was the one taking place in the heart of the woman I love.

As Kurt Cobain so eloquently put it, "Just because you're paranoid don't mean they're not after you." That was me to a "T." So I guess that's where the story takes its turn, something I need to write out and get off my chest.

The story begins years back, but the real course of events began on September 11th, ironically enough. My fiancee and I went out to her parents house for her Grandpa's 90th birthday party and she made a simple request while we were driving out there, one that should have been easy to respect. Don't drink.

I bet you can see where this is going. I got frustrated and was having a panic attack and wanted to leave after about five hours of being there, she said no. So what did I do? Drink. Well let's just say that alcohol doesn't exactly interact with my new prescription medicine so well and I ended up having it out with her parents. I said more than I should have and got into an argument with her drunk dad, needless to say it did not end up well.

We left a few hours later and did not talk on the ride home and then proceeded to argue all night long. Her dad made it clear that he did not want us getting married (we had been planning on a civil ceremony so I could go on her insurance in order to get myself into better treatment) until I fixed my head. So I'm thinking to myself, "this fucking guy doesn't give a shit about me or my recovery," and I proceeded to emotionally nail myself to the cross over the next two days. Which brings me to the 13th.

On the 13th I left work early, I was suicidal. I had a note and a plan. Park on the George Washington Bridge and leap to freedom from the mess in my head, but something stopped me, the thought of her crying over my casket, something I could never do to her. So I called her and we decided that I needed to be hospitalized. I was checked into my mental ward at about 0030 on the 13th and spent the next 6 days locked in that hell. I had never felt so alone in my life until she came to visit me that night. I cried on her shoulder and she told me everything would be alright. That, unfortunately, was a bold faced lie because when I called her the next day she informed me that we were done and I was to go home with my parents who were flying in for what was supposed to be our engagement party. It was the last time I heard her voice.

Breathe. Ok.

So now I was sitting in a fucking locked mental ward with schizos and other non-functioning people all alone and more depressed than I had ever been in my life. Long story short, my parents came in Friday, packed my apartment on Saturday and when I was discharged on Sunday we hit the road for Wisconsin. All I could think was that I failed. She told me she was leaving because I was not 100% behind my recovery, which was totally true. I was too afraid to admit to my doctors what was wrong with me because I did not want to hear what they had to say. I was too afraid of the diagnoses that they would lay on my shoulders. She said I was only dedicated to getting my head right for her and not for myself and that she could not take it any longer. I guess I can't blame her for that, but it doesn't stop the tears one bit.

When it rains, it fucking pours.

I spent the next two days in the car with my parents telling them everything I had written in this stupid blog and coming to terms with the fact that I was truly alone and more lonely than I had felt in my entire life. We talked about a lot of things, but most of all how my number one job would be to get my head back together, for me this time. Unfortunately it took me losing the love of my life, the woman I moved to fucking New York for, to realize that fact.

So here I sit, at my parent's kitchen table crying and writing the most painful thing I have ever had to write. I am in treatment Monday through Friday from nine til three trying to figure out how to let go of the massive amount of shame and guilt I feel for destroying my life in New York. Or more accurately, letting my illness destroy my relationship and my life in New York.

I guess I don't know what to say about this. I don't know how to be single, I don't know how to not be in love with her and I don't fucking know what I did to deserve this mountain of shit that has rained down on me. I imagine it is going to be a long time before I can come to terms with it, but until then all I can do is live. I don't know what else to do. I cry every night, I want to drink and smoke but I can't and I am feeling even more lost than I ever have before. I know I've said I don't know who I am anymore, but now I really have no fucking clue. For so long my life revolved around her and now she is gone and here I am, broken and emotionally destroyed.

But at least I am alive.

The only thing I can hope to accomplish is to make sure that I don't make this mistake again and break another two hearts, but let me tell you I'm sure mine will take much longer to heal than hers. Where do I go from here? Why am I here? What did I do to deserve this? The doctors tell me it isn't my fault but I just don't fucking believe them. I guess I just have to wait and see. I guess I just have to figure out how to heal, but I have no idea how to do so. I feel in one sense that my life is meaningless, but in another sense I feel that I have nowhere to go but up from here. I don't know which one I believe more. All I do know for sure is that I am alone and I need to heal. I just don't know how.

"Inch by inch, row by row,
Gonna make this garden grow,
All it takes is a rake and a hoe,
And a piece of fertile ground.

Inch by inch, row by row,
Someone bless these seeds I sow,
Someone warm them from below,
'Till the rain comes tumblin' down"

Monday, September 12, 2011

I've spent the better part of the last 24 hours either sleeping or in tears, I am completely exhausted. I'm exhausted every damn day, come to think of it. Not one single one passes without a battle being fought inside my head. Fear paralyzes me, keeps me from even recognizing myself. Thank God for the mirror. But then again, there's the catch, every time I look in the mirror I see the past. There is no getting around it, I see what no one else sees. Every day I look in that mirror and wonder who is looking back at me.

I have to give this fight everything I have and I haven't been doing that so far, but there is a reason. Some fights you get into not knowing how tough the opponent is going to be, others you make a good calculation and you win. This fight is the former. I feel it eating at me, deep inside of me. I feel it in my shoulders, in my neck and in my back. I feel it taking the weight off my already tiny frame. I can't lose anymore of myself to this fight. Trouble is, I had no idea the Pandora's Box I opened when I started actually started trying to deal with this. How could I have possibly anticipated what this would do to me? I went in totally blind. It was a fucking ambush.

I don't know what to say, I don't even know if I'm punctuating properly and I don't even know what I'm writing right now. The reason I am writing is because it shuts my mind up. Shuts up the unnervingly rapid speed and paranoia. Shuts it all up. All the doubt, the worry, the fear...it shuts it up.

I don't even know why I started this stupid blog in the first place, all I've done is bullshit and play a fucking persona. "Cue 'The Nutjob' on three please." It was fun to go out, get fucked up, ruin my life and wake up and write about it. For some reason there was a part I felt I needed to play. Who knows? Who even fucking cares? All I am is a stranger to you. I'm a fucking stranger to myself. That's why I stopped writing this crap down. Now here I am back, grovelling at its feet begging it to help me shut my fucking head up.

I'm just tired of all this shit. All this fucking worrying and these fucking doctors and their diagnosis and the fucking drugs. I hate the fact that I need them. I fucking hate that I have to be dependent on this shit to keep myself from flying off the handle like I seem to do every god damn time I have a beer. I'm sick of letting everyone down, all these people who care about me. I'm paranoid that they will leave me and it eats at me every second of every day. I can feel it creeping in from the back of my head now. The speed of my typing is going up so I concentrate on wrinting instead of thinking that everyone hates me and is destined to leave me. See, now its back.

Thats the fucking catch, isn't it? It always comes back. I can feel the soreness in my shoulders and my feet. My eyes are dry and I'm hungry but I don't want to eat. Who the hell is this? Who am I? I'm tired of asking these questions. I'm tired of this weight on my shoulders. I'm tired of the sadness and the guilt. I can't take too much more of this, I just really don't think I'm strong enough.

But don't feel sorry for me. Don't forget that there is only one person driving the nails into my cross. Me.

I wrote a long time ago about a burn I put in my right arm. It is a constant reminder of every single failure I've been through in my life. I thought that moving to New York might make that scar fade, but as I sit here and look at the smoking ash burning into my wrist I realize it has only gotten deeper.

I look at that scar every fucking day. I remember every fucking event that caused me to put it there. The play through my mind in videos I've made so I never forget. Seems like there are more and more videos in my head. More and more shit that I've done wrong. One more time I fucked up and lost control.

I sit here on my roof looking out at the site where the two beams of light fail to penetrate the evenings clouds and I wonder why I am here. I don't mean in this city. I mean on this planet.I feel more and more like I am dragging the woman I love into a pitiful life which I can't even control. More and more I feel like I will never become the man I am supposed to be. More and more I feel like that man is gone all together.

I was sitting outside work on Friday thinking about all the fights I had been in. Thinking about how I was able to shake off every one of them and get back to business as usual. I started crying when I realize it's been almost two years since the attack and I have lost every shred of my sanity. Tony Adams spent 180 days in jail for what he did to me, but what hurts me more than my face is the chain of events he set in motion with the first punch. Ever since that first punch I have been slowly losing control of my life. Losing control of my vision, of the things that made me beautiful once. I feel like all that is gone. I don't know who I am anymore.

I can't control myself. More than likely I am a danger to my own safety and that scares me so. Losing control is terrifying. But what is even more terrifying is that I don't know how to get it back. I don't even know who I am anymore. All I do know is I feel weak and powerless. Powerless to fight this demon in my head. Too weak to defeat him. Weak. Powerless. A failure.

Maybe that's what I'm destined to be. It is an utterly soul crushing feeling. And if it really is true, I have to ask the God I knew when I was a child, "why?"